J. told me he was freshly homeless after seven years living in a neighborhood rooming house that had been taken over by a bad element. A new owner enforced the rules more strictly without entirely keeping trouble away.

At least, not the trouble J. perceived. He lost his room for getting physical with non-tenants he thought were making the place dangerous again.

Right now, he's sleeping in a former tramp camp near a freeway sound wall. Last night, he was kept awake by raccoons making noise as they came down from the trees.

I was up most of the night with a stick, he said. I was worried I might lose a toe... or more tender parts.

Talk to them, I said. Make friends.

I don't talk to animals, he said.

He carried a white cane that he joked looked like he'd swiped it from Col. Sanders. He showed me it was a shower curtain rod with rubber tips on either end collapsed to its shortest length. It was heavy and would serve as a defensive weapon as well as a skid-proof walking stick.

J. said he'd gone to films in the park last evening with a woman who was prostituting herself by day, but they just fooled around on the playground equipment and laughed. They didn't even watch the movie.

I'll watch out for you, she said. Then she left, and J. remembered suddenly he was homeless and couldn't go back to the rooming house.

(I am compressing his account, omitting personal details, editing the stream of consciousness, which would impossible to transcribe anyway. He is self-aware, expresses himself on multiple levels, but his speech is a torrent issuing from a sleep-deprived mind riding in a body that has carried PTSD since childhood.)

He told me of cleaning out his room before he turned in his key, leaving behind possessions that had no use to him any more.

A red vacuum cleaner stood in the back of his closet. He and his girlfriend had gotten it to clean the carpets of the apartment she had qualified for. It was not the best place, but it was hers and it represented a positive step up. Then the building was sold, the rents jacked up, and she was evicted.

For a while, she stayed with him illegally in his room. But she had some old charges facing her and she took a plea that sent her to the women's prison. She'll be out in December.

I thought I was okay, he said. This is what God wills for me, and I can deal with it. But then I saw the vacuum in the closet and I started crying. I couldn't stop and I couldn't breathe. I was on my knees hugging that vacuum, making this whistling sound in my throat, and the guys in the other rooms went downstairs until I stopped.